Netflix Is Getting Social With New Facebook Integration

Netflix is a fantastic service, but it doesn’t do much of that “social” jazz everyone’s talking about these days. That’s about to change, though, with Netflix now introducing the appropriately christened Netflix Social, which will let you see what’s popular amongst your friends.

The engine that Netflix Social runs on is — surprise! — Facebook, which will connect you with all of your friends who use Netflix and then allow you to share content you’re watching.

You’ll also see two new rows on your Netflix homescreen, one for your Friends’ Favorites, and another showing everything your friends have recently watched called “Watched By Your Friends.”

Netflix promises you can control what you share and what you don’t want to share, but it’s opt-out individually of each one. So, for example, if you watch a gay cowboy film from Netflix’s surprisingly vast library of them and don’t want your mom to know, you can click on a “Don’t Share This” button under each item.

Netflix will be rolling out the feature over the next couple of days, and presumably, the iOS app will similarly be updated. Stay tuned.